Famous last words …
Last words are always harder to remember when no one knows that someone’s about to die.
John Green
I’ve always liked the apocryphal story of George V’s last words. In response to his doctor, who, for encouragement to the dying King, offered, “You’ll soon be well and able to visit Bognor again” (Bognor was a supposed favourite holiday destination for George V.)
Sadly, such encouragement drew only this from His Majesty, “Bugger Bognor!”
There’s probably not a word of truth in the story, but it’s still good.
Another story in a similar vein is that of Oscar Wilde. Who supposedly, on his death bed, uttered, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”
I mention these as while looking up some information about Charles Dickens, I discovered his final words were “On the Ground”. Very ordinary for such a great wordsmith. The words appear strange at first sight. But they were in response to his sister-in-law suggesting he lie down after he began to suffer symptoms of the stroke of which he died. The two were outside Dickens’ home in Gads Hill, so one can only speculate as to whether Dickens uttered the words as a question or exclamation.
Given death comes on most of us in an unexpected sudden fashion, I suspect most people’s last words are very ordinary or even incoherent. For example, the last words of the great thinker and writer Henry David Thoreau were ‘Moose’ and then ‘Indian’.
There are some notable exceptions to my suspicion, however,
Nostradamus, whom many thought could foresee the future, got it right about his demise. He predicted that “tomorrow at sunrise, I shall no longer be here”. He was dead right with that prediction (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
We all know that Marie Antoinette met a horrible fate. But she was polite to the last. After she stepped on her executioner’s foot on her way to the guillotine, she uttered her last words, “Monsieur, je vous demande pardon, je ne l’ai pas fait exprès.”
Someone who chose humour in the face of death was murderer James W. Rodgers. As he faced a firing squad, the prison warden asked if Rodgers had a last request. Despite his perilous situation, “Bring me a bullet-proof vest”, was Rodger’s reply.
If you face death through execution, maybe humour is your last comfort. The last words before the execution of convicted murderer James Donald French by Electric Chair echo this. French shouting to the assembled press corps, “How’s this for your headline? French Fries!”
Some final words that send Ripperologists into investigative delight were those of Dr Neil Thomas Cream. As an aside, I’m not convinced there was a ‘Jack the Ripper’. Newspapers were even better in the late 1900s than they are today at stitching together a story. And what a story was that of the first serial killer. The Whitechapel area of 19th Century London was notoriously dangerous, and several murdered women wouldn’t be a story unless there were some links between those murders. Don’t forget the sobriquet Jack the Ripper was not from the pen of the perpetrator but a journalist.
Dr Cream was convicted of the murder of several women using poison. Just as the trap fell away at his hanging, Cream’s executioner claimed Cream called out, “I’m Jack….” The oblivion of death claimed anything else he planned to utter.
Now he might have been about to say that he was Jack Spratt, Jack Frost or Jack the Giant-killer. But, of course, everyone believes he was about to utter … “the Ripper”. The one hole in that belief is Dr Cream was in prison in the USA at the time of the ‘Ripper’ killings. Still, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Some final words prompt black humour, as in the case of General John Sedgwick. In a battle of the American Civil War, he proclaimed, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!” just before a sharpshooter from the opposing side killed the over-confident, General.
Many will remember the stoic final words of Captain Lawrence Oates on Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, “I am just going outside and maybe some time.”
Some keep it brief, such as Hans von Bülow, a German conductor and composer, who replied simply, " Bad, " when asked how he felt.
Some of the saddest final words are those of Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo. We know how tortured an existence the marvellous painter led. Sadly, at his death, he seemed to find no respite telling Theo, “The sadness will last forever.”
I ponder what my final words might be when I utter them in what I hope is many years from the present.
One hopes it would be something deep, meaningful and of the philosophy of life. But it might just as easily be … “what car?”
